These Crazy Animal Attractions from the Past Would Never Fly Today

Seeing an elephant balance on a ball at the circus used to seem like old fashioned family fun. Why any of us thought it was safe or easy to train an elephant to perform such a feat is a mystery. People have been using live animals for entertainment for centuries, yet animal welfare wasn’t considered until fairly recently. As of 2023, only eight states have banned or restricted the use of animals in traveling circuses.

Nevertheless, the acts performed today are far more tame than the animal attractions of decades past. Of all the crazy animal attractions on record, these are by far the most bizarre. 

Bear wrestling used to be a popular sport. It was a common animal attraction in the early 1900s. As if bears wrestling other bears isn’t a bad enough idea, bear wrestling actually entailed bears wrestling humans. Typically, the bears wrestled their own trainer in a choreographed match. Sometimes, the bear would play the winner, others, they’d pretend to dramatically lose to their victorious owner. The fact that a bear is a wild animal and should never be owned at all wasn’t even a consideration. 

Occasionally, the circus would invite members of the audience to wrestle the bear, with a cash prize if they won. At first glance, the act doesn’t seem that inhumane, but the only reason no one was seriously harmed was because wrestling bears had their claws and teeth surgically removed.

If bear wrestling seems bad, keep in mind it was far from the only bizarre act bears got roped into. Circus bears were routinely humiliated, forced to wear silly costumes, ride bikes and participate in a number of other sickly comical acts. 

One of the oddest was bear ice skating, a practice that persisted well into the 2000s. Bears were forced to wear ice skates and parade around awkwardly on ice. In 2009, one bear skated straight over to one of the circus administrators to bring the performance, and the man’s life, to a rapid, dramatic close. Ice skating is supposed to be dramatic, but not that dramatic. Let’s keep the risks of a festive holiday trip to the rink to minor concussions, not lethal maulings. 

The best part? The CNN report on the incident stated, “It is unclear what caused the bear to attack.” Really? Anyone want to share an educated guess?

Just to cover all our bases, the terms used for circus performers during the early 20th century weren’t politically correct whatsoever. “Geeks” were  a type of circus “freak” who had one particular talent, if you can even call it that: Biting the heads off of live animals and drinking its blood.

The animals used were usually chickens or snakes. The idea of a geek show was to scare people into thinking they, too, might turn into “freaks,” because the geeks were otherwise completely normal. Male geeks were much more common since women were more hesitant to perform such a violent act. We can’t imagine why. Geeks also were prone to contracting illnesses like salmonella due to their constant exposure, and breaking teeth or jaws was a common occurrence. 

We thought bear wrestling was bad, but if we go back to Washington State’s Puget Sound during the ’50s and ’60s, it gets even weirder. There, divers took place in serious octopus wrestling competitions. There was even a World Octopus Wrestling Championship in 1963. 111 divers participated, catching octopuses and dragging them to the surface. They were awarded points for the amount of equipment used and the weight of the octopus they wrestled. 

Calling the practice “wrestling” was a stretch. Octopuses live in secluded ocean caves and would prefer to avoid confrontation. Wrestling one equated to grabbing the poor creature by the head and pulling on it until it released the rock it was suctioned to. Why did anyone think that was okay? It’s even worse now that we know how intelligent octopuses are.